Motivation – Page 30 – Fast:Forward Farther

December 28, 2012December 18, 2012

Lessons Learned – #4

Lessons come from many places. Here is one from sports:

Youthful Wisdom – Awakening April 10, 2011, Rory McIlroy was four strokes ahead of the field at The Masters. Then he shot 80, the worst score ever by a leader in the final round, and finished 15th. The next day he tweeted a quote from Muhammad Ali: “It’s repetition of affirmations that leads to belief, and once that belief becomes a deep conviction things begin to happen.” Two months later, having learned his lessons well, McIlroy set the tournament record in winning the U.S. Open. This year the 23-year-old prodigy won four events, including his second major at the PGA Championship, and earned Player of the Year honors. A certain Churchill line about never giving in comes to mind.

December 27, 2012December 18, 2012

Lessons Learned – #5

Each year in December I reflect in my e-newsletter on the top lessons learned during the preceding 12 months. Here is #5:

Continuous Growth – My son is playing his last season of high school basketball. At ‘Meet the Cougars’ the coach told parents it’s important we allow children to learn from mistakes. “We try to teach our kids how to handle things,” he said. “Then when they mess up, we don’t let them handle things. That creates a lot of problems when they go off to college.” Amazingly, I heard the same sentiment from an energy company CEO a few weeks later: “A lot of leaders delegate, then jump in and try to fix everything. That makes it hard for people to improve.”

December 26, 2012December 18, 2012

Lessons Learned – #6

Counting down the best things I learned this year – #6:

Kind Consideration – In the spring we acquired a license for a team-building simulation. Every client I’ve delivered it to found the approach a terrific way to teach leaders how to be better communicators and collaborators. Surprisingly, the president of the company we purchased it from sent us a thank you card. In this electronic age where anyone can email in 30 seconds, I am a big believer in the importance of taking a few extra minutes to hand-write and mail a note. Add that to your ‘self-improvement list’ for next year and see how recipients react.

December 25, 2012December 18, 2012

Lessons Learned – #7

Merry Christmas. Here is the seventh best thing I learned in 2012:

Writer’s Lock – Angel investor Scott Belsky wrote: “The project plateau is littered with the carcasses of dead ideas that never happened… and that is why there are more half-written novels in the world than there are novels.” Three bestsellers allowed Random House to spread holiday cheer this year by awarding $5,000 bonuses to all 5,343 employees. I didn’t read the books, but a lot of people did. The publisher made $163 million on the efforts of E.L. James, who has 59-million reasons to be glad she had the discipline to complete the “Fifty Shades” trilogy.

December 20, 2012December 18, 2012

Auf Wiedersehen

In the last couple of years the conspiracy theorists convinced quite a few people that centuries ago the Mayan calendar predicted the world is ending tomorrow – just when we are starting to gain a bunch of momentum with our business. So, this may be the last blog entry I write.

Of course, an Art History professor at the University of Texas at Austin – a renowned expert on Maya culture and winner of the UNESCO medal for lifetime contributions on Maya archeological sites – thinks there is a different explanation: providing comfort during a time of crisis.

“The hieroglyphs emphasized seventh century history and politics,” said David Stuart in an article on the school’s website. The world’s leading epigrapher of Maya script recently deciphered 56 glyphs in the Guatemalan jungle and discovered 200 years of history. “The monument commemorated a royal visit… by the most powerful Maya ruler… a few months after his defeat by a longstanding rival in 695 AD.”

Instead of predicting the world’s demise, Stuart believes the calendar alluded to a larger cycle of time that “happens to end in 2012.” When troubled, the ancient Maya “used their calendar to promote continuity and stability.” The importance of December 21, 2012, is to introduce a new cycle of hope. It’s “the end of 13 bak’tuns” and “the point was to associate the diving king’s time on the throne to time on a cosmic scale.”

Rest easy tonight. You’re likely going to wake up tomorrow just in time to do all that last-minute Christmas shopping. After all, as Stuart notes, “There are many more bak’tuns to come.”